Amazon Prime Video ads to double, report says

It's not your imagination — you're likely seeing more ads these days.

Prime Video, Amazon's streaming offering, has quietly doubled its ads, according to an exclusive report from Adweek. Citing ad buyers and documents it reviewed, Adweek reported that Amazon has moved to four to six minutes of ads per hour of streaming. That's double the two to three-and-a-half minutes when Prime Video first launched ads in January of last year.

“Prime Video ad load has gradually increased to four to six minutes per hour,” an Amazon representative told an ad buyer, according to Adweek.

It seems like every streaming platform has gradually moved to include more ads. HBO Max — then known as Max, which was previously HBO Max, which was previously HBO Now, which was previously HBO Go — rolled out ads last year and recently cracked down on password sharing. That's a double whammy of ad inconvenience. Netflix? Ads and password sharing crackdown. Hulu or pretty much anywhere else? Ditto.

You can, of course, pay extra to get an ad-free experience. For Amazon, that means an extra $3 per month. Streamers, of course, have rebranded the ad-supported tiers as cheaper options.

But I, for one, remember the days when ponying up hefty monthly fees meant no ads on streaming at all. Unfortunately for consumers, it appears the ads will only become more and more frequent.